Suggestion Box/Wishlist: what do we want from Ultrasabers?

[Samhain138]

As a recording engineer and person with ears, I would REALLY like to see the sound font waveforms match up to get rid of the rather nasty clicks in most of the V4 sound fonts. Obsidian is pretty good. Blackstar is alright. Sith, meh. Ancient saber is pretty good. Episode 1 and 2, not so great. Episode 6 is unusable. It sounds like it's going to destroy the speaker and it just plain sounds bad. This is essentially my only complaint about Ultrasabers.
I didn't want to buy a saber with multiple soundfonts just to have to fix them and make my own, and I think the fact that I could is a poor excuse for terrible audio editing.

 

It’s more of a memory issue if I’m not mistaken, and the new diamond sabers have tons more.  I usually clear the fonts I don’t use and expand the spaces for the ones I do.

[Gar-Wi Musan]

It’s more of a memory issue if I’m not mistaken, and the new diamond sabers have tons more.  I usually clear the fonts I don’t use and expand the spaces for the ones I do.

 No offense, but it has nothing at all to do with memory. The loops for the idle hum do not start and stop at the same point, causing clicks. Also, some of the swing and clash noises just need to be trimmed properly. This is what Ive been doing for 22 years. I just don't want to have to do it for my sabers at the moment.

[Samhain138]

I’m not saying you’re wrong, I haven’t really bother with the defaults in a long time.  But there is a memory issue that can cause clicks and pops when the sabers at capacity.

[Gar-Wi Musan]

I’m not saying you’re wrong, I haven’t really bother with the defaults in a long time.  But there is a memory issue that can cause clicks and pops when the sabers at capacity.

 This was a day one issue. I have yet to even hook my saber up to my computer. Aren't there extra spaces for adding soundfonts? I have never heard of memory causing clicks in a loop at the exact same point every time they are played. Not to mention, my saber cost $307. The same hilt and options with Diamond sound is $450. I'm not paying that much more just to get decent sound.
By the way I'm not saying you're wrong either.
Sorry if I'm coming across as harsh, I've had a terrible day. I should probably stop posting for the night. Respect.

[Samhain138]

It’s all good.  I had some of the same issues out of the box too.  The episode II font is weird in particular If i remember right.  But yeah, when you get it hooked up, back up all your stuff (you can download the font packages on the website) and try removing a font you don’t care for.  See if that helps.

Bad days happen, I didn’t take anything too harsh lol so don’t worry about it.

[Gar-Wi Musan]

It’s all good.  I had some of the same issues out of the box too.  The episode II font is weird in particular If i remember right.  But yeah, when you get it hooked up, back up all your stuff (you can download the font packages on the website) and try removing a font you don’t care for.  See if that helps.

 Thanks Sam. I will get around to that at some point. luckily, I like the first four soundfonts the most.

[Taegin Roan]

As a recording engineer and person with ears, I would REALLY like to see the sound font waveforms match up to get rid of the rather nasty clicks in most of the V4 sound fonts. Obsidian is pretty good. Blackstar is alright. Sith, meh. Ancient saber is pretty good. Episode 1 and 2, not so great. Episode 6 is unusable. It sounds like it's going to destroy the speaker and it just plain sounds bad. This is essentially my only complaint about Ultrasabers.
I didn't want to buy a saber with multiple soundfonts just to have to fix them and make my own, and I think the fact that I could is a poor excuse for terrible audio editing.

Actually, I agree with you. I just read the convo between you and Sam, but I have noticed this as well. When I would completely take the Obsidian soundfont off, and use another one (the space could NOT have been an issue then), I would have this same problem. It quickly got to the point that I wouldn't use any except Obsidian, which is sad, because I love the idle hum of ones like BlackStar and Ancient Saber. I may have to try Ancient Saber again since you say that it is pretty good.

[BlindJedi]

Funny, in all of the videos I've watched on YouTube, with all of the sounds from the Diamond board, I have yet to hear any popping, clicking, or any other artifacts in the audio from the sabers.
Being an audio engineer myself, I can honestly say that editing a sound for a saber would be difficult.  I own sabers from Hasbro that have audio artifacts, including clicking, popping, and some distortions, along with some unusual silent periods.
The sounds would be tricky to edit, because of the nature of the device.  Starting a swing sound, clash, lockup, etc, during the idol humm could introduce pops, clicks, and other odd sounds regardless of how perfectly the sounds are edited.  Mostly because I think the sounds don't overlap.  The wave form is just cut off as the next sound plays, creating a bad pop, click, or distortion.  Sounds like Blackstar are raspy enough to cover up most of these hickups.
If the boards quickly faded the sounds as another started, and slightly overlapped them, the problems would more than likely disappear.

[Gar-Wi Musan]

Funny, in all of the videos I've watched on YouTube, with all of the sounds from the Diamond board, I have yet to hear any popping, clicking, or any other artifacts in the audio from the sabers.
Being an audio engineer myself, I can honestly say that editing a sound for a saber would be difficult.  I own sabers from Hasbro that have audio artifacts, including clicking, popping, and some distortions, along with some unusual silent periods.
The sounds would be tricky to edit, because of the nature of the device.  Starting a swing sound, clash, lockup, etc, during the idol humm could introduce pops, clicks, and other odd sounds regardless of how perfectly the sounds are edited.  Mostly because I think the sounds don't overlap.  The wave form is just cut off as the next sound plays, creating a bad pop, click, or distortion.  Sounds like Blackstar are raspy enough to cover up most of these hickups.
If the boards quickly faded the sounds as another started, and slightly overlapped them, the problems would more than likely disappear.

 Exactly. The idle hum should fade to basically nothing when swing/clash or lockup sounds are triggered. I still don't think it's would be that difficult to edit the sounds properly. I don't feel like they even tried. perhaps the board itself is just sub par.

[Gar-Wi Musan]

 I just remembered I have a lightsaber App on my iPhone called Great Lightsaber (terrible name). It has three idle hums and they all are shorter loops (one second for one of them) than the V4 soundfonts. Only one sounds bad, and even with professional studio monitor headphones, the clash and swing sounds have zero problems playing on top of the idle hum. Hmmmm...

[BlindJedi]

I just remembered I have a lightsaber App on my iPhone called Great Lightsaber (terrible name). It has three idle hums and they all are shorter loops (one second for one of them) than the V4 soundfonts. Only one sounds bad, and even with professional studio monitor headphones, the clash and swing sounds have zero problems playing on top of the idle hum. Hmmmm...

I downloaded that app onto my iPhone, and iPad, and played around with it for a while, it does have a few audio glitches here and there, but nothing like some of the old Hasbro lightsabers from the 90s and early 2000s.  Granted, the phone and tablet opperate differently than a US saber.
Honestly, when I purchase my next saber, I will probably still go with the Diamond board, then clean up the audio myself, and possibly come up with a few custom sound fonts of my own.
The other thing is that the audio resolution might be too poor to fix.

[BatMike90]

I really would like the ability to have a recharge port for a Prophecy V3 while also having the Diamond board.

[BatMike90]

I am going to repost a suggestion I did awhile back.

Time for another upgrade to the Diamond board. Multiple power-ons, poweroffs, force effects and etc. Add those and there will be no competitation left.

[Gar-Wi Musan]

Funny, in all of the videos I've watched on YouTube, with all of the sounds from the Diamond board, I have yet to hear any popping, clicking, or any other artifacts in the audio from the sabers.
Being an audio engineer myself, I can honestly say that editing a sound for a saber would be difficult.  I own sabers from Hasbro that have audio artifacts, including clicking, popping, and some distortions, along with some unusual silent periods.
The sounds would be tricky to edit, because of the nature of the device.  Starting a swing sound, clash, lockup, etc, during the idol humm could introduce pops, clicks, and other odd sounds regardless of how perfectly the sounds are edited.  Mostly because I think the sounds don't overlap.  The wave form is just cut off as the next sound plays, creating a bad pop, click, or distortion.  Sounds like Blackstar are raspy enough to cover up most of these hickups.
If the boards quickly faded the sounds as another started, and slightly overlapped them, the problems would more than likely disappear.

 So you seem to understand sound in general pretty well. I just got my Aeon v4 back from US after they repaired the battery speaker combo which had broken. when I got it back, it came with my new Dominix v4. Both have the exact same specs, but they used a different speaker membrane on the Aeon than the original or the new Dominix and it is considerably lower in volume. They claim it's just a different membrane or "cone" but the same speaker. They offered to switch it for the same one that is in the Dominix, but do you think that makes any sense or will change the output volume that significantly? I was even considering just lowering the volume of the Dominix to match the Aeon via the Obsidian launcher but that would suck. I want them both as loud as possible. I would appreciate your input on this. Thanks.

[Gar-Wi Musan]

 So you seem to understand sound in general pretty well. I just got my Aeon v4 back from US after they repaired the battery speaker combo which had broken. when I got it back, it came with my new Dominix v4. Both have the exact same specs, but they used a different speaker membrane on the Aeon than the original or the new Dominix and it is considerably lower in volume. They claim it's just a different membrane or "cone" but the same speaker. They offered to switch it for the same one that is in the Dominix, but do you think that makes any sense or will change the output volume that significantly? I was even considering just lowering the volume of the Dominix to match the Aeon via the Obsidian launcher but that would suck. I want them both as loud as possible. I would appreciate your input on this. Thanks.

 And just to be clear, despite being lower volume overall, there are STILL the exact same clicks and pops, especially on the episode 6 font.